


Tough Guys

by theskywasblue



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Clowns, Fear, Humor, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 05:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>for <a href="http://kansouame.dreamwidth.org/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://kansouame.dreamwidth.org/"><b>kansouame</b></a>'s prompt: "Clowns make Arthur nervous"</p>
    </blockquote>





	Tough Guys

**Author's Note:**

> for [](http://kansouame.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**kansouame**](http://kansouame.dreamwidth.org/)'s prompt: "Clowns make Arthur nervous"

“What’s this?”

Ariadne looked up from her sketchbook, eyes slightly owlish, a smear of charcoal on her chin, “Just some mock-ups.”

“For what?”

Ariadne made a face, “For the _job_.”

Arthur picked up one of the sketches, cautiously. It appeared to show a three-ring circus, complete with high-wire and trapeze. Ariadne had left the impression of a few shadowed figures sitting in the bleachers, but otherwise it was only an empty stage, not unlike any of the other dreamscapes that Ariadne often designed for them to use in jobs. Despite that they had studied in the same field, Ariadne had a much more artistic touch to her architecture than Cobb did; and Arthur, who had learned to build primarily from Cobb, logically combined his own fastidious nature with Cobb’s sharp eye for detail; the deepest he got into the artistic nature of dreaming was the careful recreation of other people’s art. It made him all the more appreciative of Ariadne’s natural creativity.

Well, most of the time.

“As long as it doesn’t involve any clowns,” he said finally, setting the drawing down.

“What’s wrong with clowns?” Ariadne called after him as he returned to his desk.

“Yes, Arthur darling,” Eames perched himself on the edge of Arthur’s desk before Arthur even sat down, smiling shamelessly. “What _is_ wrong with clowns?”

“Nothing,” Arthur responded, far too quickly to be convincing. Eames’ smile got, if possible, wider – shark-like. Many an unwary poker player had seen that smile from the wrong end of the table.

“Could it be that the unshakable Arthur is afraid of clowns?”

"I'm not _afraid_." Arthur corrected him, with probably more emphasis than was strictly necessary. "I just find them...deeply, deeply unsettling."

He pulled his moleskin out of his desk drawer and made some half-hearted notes in order to avoid having to look at Eames again, whom he could _feel_ grinning now.

"I'm not sure I understand the difference."

"I don't _run away_ from them," Arthur clarified, glowering up at Eames, "I just don't _like_ them. Sane people don't like clowns."

Before Eames could make a smart-assed comment on Arthur's sanity or lack thereof – because if Arthur was honest, anyone who lived the sort of life he had lived couldn't qualify as entirely sane – Cobb came swooping in and demanded all their attention on the job. And for a while, Arthur forgot about clowns.

That was, until they did their dry-run three days later, and Arthur's carefully orchestrated dreamscape was suddenly overflowing with them.

Dreams were ridiculously tenuous things, even when you knew you were having them. There had been a lot of theories in the early days of dream sharing about what would happen if someone attempted to drop themselves into the middle of someone else's nightmare. It had always been deemed too dangerous – though Arthur wasn't naive enough to believe no one had ever tried it – but as far as Arthur was concerned, Cobb had proven without a doubt, that no matter how in control you thought you were, your subconscious could still run up behind you and ram a knife in your back. There was no reason to encourage it to happen.

Arthur tried to hold it together, he really did – breathing exercises, positive thinking, the whole nine yards – but it was like trying to hold on to water. He managed sixty, maybe ninety seconds before the tent caught fire, the ground heaved and split open underneath their feet, the circus animals exploded into a sticky rain of entrails or contorted themselves into hideous pretzels of flesh, and the clowns...the clowns bared razor-sharp shark teeth and went for Arthur like they were going to tear him to pieces.

“Christ Arthur! What the hell was that?” Dom was grabbing for the PASIV lines, but Arthur had been tossed out of the dream at least five seconds ahead and was already ripping the line from his arm and staggering across the workshop to the bathroom. There was no way he was going to lose his composure and throw up in front of the team.

He managed not to throw up at all, just ended up leaning on the edge of the sink and splashing cold water on his face.

“Are you decent?” Eames stuck his head in before Arthur could answer, letting in the sound of Cobb and Ariadne arguing loudly as he slipped inside and shut the door. The bathroom was single occupancy, and much too small with both of them crowded inside.

“Eames would you get – “

“There now,” Eames crowded Arthur back against the toilet until he had no choice but to sit down, grabbing a handful of paper towels from the dispenser with one hand, and Arthur’s wrist in the other, “you’re bleeding.”

There was, Arthur realized belatedly, a long ribbon of blood running down the inside of his arm. Eames wiped it away with the paper towel and pressed a callused thumb on the punctured vein.

“Christ, I’m not going to bleed to death, Eames.”

“All the same,” Eames shrugged, “you can never be too careful.”

Arthur gave up his pride to Eames’ Florence Nightingale routine, let him scrub away the tiny bloodstain on his sleeve where the fabric had fallen down while he tried to think of how he was going to reasonably explain to Cobb that he probably couldn’t do this job if there were going to be clowns involved.

He would rather shoot himself in the foot most days than admit he didn’t have it in him to do something.

“Frogs,” Eames said, suddenly, voice lowered as if he was telling Arthur some great secret.

“What?”

“Frogs,” Eames repeated solemnly, and when he looked up at Arthur, he was wearing this weirdly bashful face, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I absolutely hate the little blighters.”

Arthur gave himself a moment, so that he could properly process what it was that Eames was trying to confess. "Eames...are you afraid of frogs?"

"I wouldn't say..." Eames started, but he withered under the force of the glare Arthur levelled at him, "Yes, alright. I'm afraid of frogs. I can't help it – they're slimy, and they – they... _jump_." He shuddered visibly, and Arthur pretended not to notice. "I was just trying to make you feel better about your nervous breakdown by pointing out that every human being – even one as wonderful as myself – is subject to irrational fears."

"You're trying to cheer me up?" Arthur blinked, wondering if he should actively object to the use of the term _nervous breakdown_. Eames wasn't the sort of person who cheered other people up, as a general rule; he was really more the sort of person for whom the word _schadenfreude_ existed.

"Yes," Eames pronounced dourly, as if it was painful for him to admit. "Is it working?"

"No, not really," Arthur lied, mostly because his pride was badly wounded and he hated to let Eames have the upper hand in anything if he could help it.

"Right. On to Plan B."

And then Eames was kissing him. Arthur did a sort of helpless flail and banged his elbow on the toilet tank, sending a hot lance of pain up into his shoulder and making him curse into Eames' mouth. Eames took this as some kind of encouragement and express permission to put his tongue in Arthur's mouth; which Arthur would have been surprisingly – maybe not so surprisingly, if he was honest with himself – alright with if not for the fact that the angle was more or less horrible and putting a kink in his neck. He put both hands on Eames chest and shoved Eames back until he could stand – though their mouths remained resolutely in contact, as if no force in the known universe could separate them - and the breadth of Eames' shoulders hit the wall with a painful sounding _thud_.

“How about now?” Eames grinned smugly against Arthur’s mouth, hissing softly when Arthur retaliated by biting his lower lip and giving him a little shove again, just for good measure.

“Whatever you’re doing in there,” Cobb shouted, pounding on the door and bringing an abrupt halt to Eames’ efforts to unfasten Arthur’s waistcoat, “do it on your own time – Ariadne’s got a new idea for the layout.”

“Thank Christ,” Arthur muttered, stepping sideways out of Eames’ reach and smoothing out his waistcoat, tucking in a loose shirttail. He had his hand on the doorknob before he looked back at Eames. “Drinks tonight?”

“Drinks?” Eames grinned, “are you sure you won’t want to go to the circus instead?”

“Only if we visit an aquarium first,” Arthur retorted, stepping out and slamming the door on Eames’ nervous laughter.

-End-


End file.
